Telangana waives off Rs 3,920 crore housing loan of poor

The government mobilized Rs 17,660 crore for construction and allocated Rs 1,433 crore in the current budget while in the past decade, the previous governments had spent only Rs 11,000 crore for housing schemes.TNN | December 28, 2016, 17:30 IST

HYDERABAD: In a huge relief to weaker sections, the TRS government on Tuesday announced a major loan waiver for housing beneficiaries. Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said Rs 3,920 crore loan component that has to be paid by beneficiaries of Indiramma weaker section housing scheme between 2004 and 2014 would be waived. Similarly, the waiver is also applicable to the beneficiaries of Rajiv Gruhakalpa housing scheme.

During a short discussion on the two-bedroom housing (2-BHK) scheme in the assembly, the chief minister said the government would complete construction of 2.60 lakh houses, if possible more, in the next two and a half years. Houses being taken up under the Indiramma scheme too would be completed as soon as possible. To speed up the 2BHK scheme in Hyderabad, the government identified about 650 acres of land and a meeting with city ministers, MLAs and MLCs will be convened soon to finalize the details.

Admitting to delays in executing the scheme though the government had sanctioned 2,60,000 houses, the chief minister said tenders were finalized for 14,224 two-bedroom houses and 1,217 were completed and another 9,588 were under construction at various places. The government mobilized Rs 17,660 crore for construction and allocated Rs 1,433 crore in the current budget while in the past decade, the previous governments had spent only Rs 11,000 crore for housing schemes.

Chief minister Chandrasekhar Rao said the previous governments had claimed that 43,29,124 houses were constructed for the economically weaker sections in the past couple of decades, including 24,91,870 houses between 2004 and 2014.

“If this is true, there would not have been any homeless family in the state and there was no need for any new housing scheme. But the reality is different,“ Chandrasekhar Rao said. The state government initiated action against people who indulged in irregularities based on the CID inquiry ordered into the Indiramma housing scheme by the previous government, he said.

MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi alleged that Muslims were being left out of the housing scheme. He said only 1.36% of Muslim minorities benefited from the scheme so far and demanded that they be alloted 12% of total houses planned under the scheme. Meanwhile, Congress leader K Jana Reddy urged the state government to complete over two-lakh Indiramma houses that were pending for the past few years and also clear bills of eligible beneficiaries.